October 15, 2003, 8:22 a.m.
The Florida Myth
An urban legend to fire up the base.
By Peter Kirsanow

Political myths can overcome facts through sheer repetition: The New Deal ended
the Depression, tax cuts caused budget deficits in the Eighties, etc. These
myths serve vital partisan imperatives especially when the policy cupboards of
the partisans are bare or vermin-infested.

One of the myths already resurrected for the 2004 presidential election cycle
is that blacks in Florida were systematically harassed, intimidated, and
prevented from voting in the 2000 presidential election < the "stolen" election.

Even before the last vote had been cast, activists had descended upon
Florida, claiming a widespread conspiracy to disenfranchise black voters.
Allegations that state troopers put up roadblocks and checkpoints to prevent
blacks from voting were rampant. Dogs and hoses were allegedly used to drive
black voters from the polls. Bull Connor's heirs had been unleashed < all at the
direction of Governor Bush and his sidekick, Secretary of State Katherine
Harris.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights investigated these allegations over a
six-month period beginning in January 2001. Its 200-page majority report, Voting
Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election, excoriates
Florida's election officials for various acts of misfeasance. But the
conclusions drawn by the report often bore little relationship to the facts
contained therein. And media descriptions of the report did little to dispel the
widespread belief among the black electorate that blacks had been systematically
targeted for harassment, intimidation, and disenfranchisement.

Of course, almost no one actually read the report. But the handful that did
(especially the incisive dissent authored by Commissioners Abigail Thernstrom
and Russell Redenbaugh) discovered the astonishing mendacity underlying the
myth.

There's absolutely no evidence that a single person was intimidated,
harassed, or prevented from voting by Florida law-enforcement officials.

Despite claims of rampant police intimidation and harassment, the only
evidence of law-enforcement "misconduct" consisted of just two witnesses who
described their perceptions of the actions of the Florida highway patrol. One of
these witnesses testified that he thought it was "unusual" to see an empty
patrol car parked outside a polling place. There was no evidence that sight of
the vehicle somehow intimidated the witness or any other voters from casting
ballots. There was no evidence that the erstwhile occupant of the vehicle
harassed voters. There was no evidence that the empty vehicle was there for the
purpose of somehow disenfranchising anyone assigned to vote at that location.

The second witness had filed a highly publicized complaint with the NAACP
regarding a police motor-vehicle checkpoint. In the hysterical recount period
following the election, the complaint took on a life of its own and apparently
became part of the basis for the legend that legions of cops were harassing
thousands of black voters throughout Florida.

The evidence, however, shows that the checkpoint in question was two miles
from the polling place. Moreover, it was not even on the same road as the
polling facility. During the checkpoint's approximately 90 minutes of operation,
citations for faulty equipment were issued to 16 individuals, twelve of whom
were white. The incontrovertible evidence shows that no one was delayed or
prohibited from voting due to the lone checkpoint.

There's no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.

The myth of a nefarious plot to thwart black voters from casting ballots is
wholly unsupported by the evidence. Inconvenience, bureaucratic errors, and
inefficiencies were indeed pervasive. But these problems don't rise to the level
of invidious discrimination. (There was one case in which a black woman
alleged that she was turned away from a poll at closing time whereas a white man
wasn't.)

Much has been made of the "felon purge list," i.e., a list of those
individuals who, under Florida law, were to be barred from voting due to felony
convictions. The list had been prepared to prevent the kind of fraud that had
occurred in the infamous Miami mayoral election, in which a number of ineligible
felons voted.

The list was inaccurate; it included people who shouldn't have been on it. Thus,
the myth holds that the purge list was somehow a tool to deny blacks the right
to vote.

But facts are stubborn things. Whites were actually twice as likely as blacks
to be erroneously placed on the list. In fact, an exhaustive study by the Miami
Herald concluded that "the biggest problem with the felon list was not that it
prevented eligible voters from casting ballots, but that it ended up allowing
ineligible voters to cast a ballot."* According to the Palm Beach Post, more
than 6,500 ineligible felons voted.

State officials were not at fault for widespread voter "disenfranchisement."

The myth holds that Governor Bush, in league with Secretary of State
Katherine Harris, either by design or incompetence, failed to fulfill their
electoral responsibilities, resulting in the discriminatory disenfranchisement
of thousands of black voters. This was purportedly a key to the overarching
Republican plot to steal the election from Al Gore.

Again, reality intrudes. The incontrovertible evidence shows that by statute
the responsibility for the conduct of elections is in the hands of county
supervisors, not the governor or secretary of state. County supervisors are
independent officers answerable to county commissioners, not the governor or
secretary of state. And in 24 of the
25 counties that had the highest ballot-spoilage rates, the county supervisor
was a Democrat. (In the remaining county the supervisor was not a Republican,
but an independent.)

Moreover, as is simply put by Commissioner Thernstrom, voter error is not the
same thing as "disenfranchisement." Even if more black voters than white voters
spoiled their ballots by mistake, that's not evidence of a scheme to
discriminate on the basis of race, and it certainly doesn't evoke images of dogs
and fire hoses.

After issuance of the commission's report, some diehards, perhaps realizing
that history frowns on demagoguery, desperately sought any facts that might
support the myth. The Justice Department was pressed for action, and conducted a
thorough investigation. The result: The Civil Rights Division found no credible
evidence in our investigation that Floridians were intentionally denied their
right to vote during the November 2000 election.

The Justice Department did find violations of the Voting Rights Act in three
counties. The infractions were that some poll workers had been hostile to
Hispanic voters, bilingual assistance hadn't been provided to two Haitian
voters, and some Hispanic voters had been denied bilingual assistance. None of
the offending counties was controlled by Republicans.

Of course, there's a reason why charges of disenfranchisement have great
traction among the black electorate. After all, the Voting Rights Act wasn't
simply a piece of feel-good legislation. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and worse
remain vivid memories for far too many.

That's precisely why baseless claims of voter harassment on the basis of race
are particularly odious. They inflame racial tensions by perpetuating a belief
that the shameful practices of two generations past continue unabated < that a
virulently racist hegemony is forever poised to subjugate minorities.

The consequences of generating suspicion of the electoral process for the sake
of partisan advantage are at once insidious and profound. They dangerously
undermine the legitimacy of government and encourage rejection of its authority.

The myth is poisonous to society and democracy. Its antidote is a relentless,
adamant repetition of the truth.